Fired
by szechuan.sauce
Summary: Max has been kicked out of school again. Finding her way through life with nothing but a book, her dad's lighter, and her witticisms that always land her in trouble, Max spends her days following the only rule she cares about: Don't do things you'll regret. Life is hard for a girl who has no direction. Some girls just want to watch the world burn.
1. harry

4:17 p.m. found me waiting for the 517 bus that would take me through the bad part of downtown. Past the decrepit tattoo parlors that clients would walk out of with a new butterfly tramp stamp and a recommendation to be tested for chlamydia and the grotty old pubs that that only housed the drunkest of alcoholics this time of day; that was where I was headed.

I supposed I'd be a totally different girl if I had two working, doting parents and lived in a part of town with a name like _Golden Heights_ or _Swallow Falls_ , but both my parents are gone and I'm stuck living in the bad part of town, in a neighborhood aptly named _Hell's Kitchen_ because either Gordon Ramsay lived here or the damp, musty air always smells like rotten meatloaf. One of the two.

Anyways, I was waiting for the bus to take me home and I watched a drunken homeless man pleasure himself in an alleyway across the street. Not that I was trying to watch him, but I had already memorized all the meaningless graffiti on the bus stop walls and there really wasn't much else to look at. Besides, every ten seconds he'd look up from stroking inside his pants and meet my eyes and give me a lewd grin which sent shivers up my spine.

My bus finally came and I got on and I sat in the last empty seat close to the front. I continued to watch the homeless guy through the grimy window, and what a sight that was, seeing this dirty man performing a dirty act through a dirty window. It's a lot of dirt to handle but I'm used to dirt and so I just shrugged it off.

I didn't really care, though. I firmly believe that everyone should have a cause in life and that's what keeps us going, and for some people it's masturbating in a public alleyway and that's okay.

At my old school nobody believed me when I told them about my dad's lighter. It's always with me, always in my pocket or in my bag or in my hands where I'm itching to light it and burn everything I know to the ground. Any time someone touches it it feels less like it his and this is all I have left of my dad so yeah, my threats were legitimate.

I said to people who touched it, I said that I'd break their arms and stuff them down their throats. But people didn't believe me, probably because I am quite skinny and also a girl and according to Sam Schorr, the quarterback at my old school, I didn't look like I could break a pencil in half. But I did that and so much more.

What people thought about me never really mattered to me. Probably because I've always had my own plans and being called names or being kicked out of my old school didn't affect my plans very much. If I could do it over again, though, I'd throw that pencil much harder at Sam Schorr. I only grazed the side of his neck and that didn't feel like very much retribution for what he had done to me, touching my dad's lighter.

As it was, the scene wasn't pretty. The set up was that I was sitting on one side of the principal's office with my aunt next to me, and Sam Schorr and his doting parents that live in _Willow Falls_ , the new luxury tenements, where sitting on the other side glaring daggers at me. Sam's dad was a franchise guy- he owned two Subways and three McDonald's and he did pretty well for himself, considering there was a street behind the school named Schorr Rd. because had donated bajillions of dollars to the city.

Anyways, the principal was sitting with the Schorrs, and he was also glaring at me, so basically I was in a room full of enemies besides my aunt but she didn't really count because she was whacked out on Valium and was busy twiddling her thumbs and counting the number of bumps on the popcorn ceiling.

"Are we ready to begin?" the principal asked in this weirdly honeyed voice, and the Schorrs nodded looking all serious and I just said, "Sure, old man," which went down like a ton of bricks.

Sam's dad said, "Max, we are ready to forgive you if you apologize," with this expression on his face that sat halfway between pity and disgust.

"I'm not forgiving the bitch," Sam said angrily, his voice still cracking from his late puberty which no one was allowed to comment on unless they wanted their head shoved in a toilet. "I'm going to miss at least two games."

I said, "I'm surprised they let you play if you haven't even finished puberty yet," and Sam stood up with his fists clenched, ready to shove my face into a toilet, but he couldn't, not with his parents sitting there trying to be all civil. Sam's dad put an arm on his shoulder and sat him back down.

The principal said, "Max, do you have anything you want to say?"

I hooked my thumbs in the pockets of my worn jeans and looked the whole disgusting lot of them in the eye. "Your little football prince shouldn't have touched my lighter. I warned him he'd get a pencil in his neck, and he got a pencil in his neck."

And that went down like a ton of bricks, too, because the Schorrs were apparently very respected in this town and to insult one of them like that was basically to commit slander. "Max, if you're going to stay at this school, you must apologize to Sam and his family."

I looked at Sam, then, at this tall, muscled boy that needed both his parents and the school principal to protect him from _me_ , and I grinned. "I am sorry, Sam. Sorry I wasn't clearer. Don't touch my fucking lighter. Eventually, all these people who dote over you are going to disappear, and you're going to be all alone, and then we'll see-"

I stopped because my aunt had just squeezed my leg, so she must have been at least partly present.

My aunt is one of the nicest people in the world. My dad's older sister. She was the only person left that understood me, and when I drove back because she was still coming down from her high, she said she was sorry things had ended up like this for me. "Your dad dying and your mom going away is a lot to handle, but stabbing people won't fix anything."

And then she enrolled me in a different school with no comment and took me out to see a sad movie, one of those films about a dog where you know exactly how it's going to end before the title even shows up, but you still end up sobbing quietly into your shirt anyway. So we both cried a lot and afterwards we went out for ice cream, the kind you eat with big spoons because my aunt said it was a big spoon kind of day.

Anne Walker was so kind to me, and all I'd done so far was make trouble for her. I resolved that day to be a better person.

Except trouble was my cause in life, and it was impossible for me to avoid.


	2. did

So whoever is reading this- from whatever trash can you foraged it out of- you might be wondering what this story is about. Well, I don't really know. A lot of things happened to me in quick succession, and it calmed me down to write about them, so I did. But when I do finish, I'm going to throw this out.

Don't feel like I think you're any less terrible than anyone else. It's up to you to behave like a decent person, and the rest of us that aren't tepid fools will recognize and applaud your efforts.

My new school was called Newton High School. It was in the town neighboring ours, so I had a moment of happiness when I realized I wouldn't have to deal with Sam Schorr or his disgusting family anymore. My happiness was tapered when I realized there were kids like Sam Schorr in every high school across America, and they would never, never accept kids like me.

Since it was so far away, I had to take the bus.

The start of the new semester brought a fresh feeling of dread. From what you've heard about me so far you might think I'm some sort of delinquent. I'm just a quiet person who likes to mind my own business. Going to school aptly frightens any individual who thinks "outside the box," as my old principal put it.

I got up and got dressed. I know some girls whose morning routine might take 2 or 3 hours on a good day, but for me the time I spend getting ready is negligible. Comb my fingers through my mane of brownish blondish hair, brush my teeth, and pull on the clothes I always wear. Gray sweatshirt with the hood up, black ripped jeans, black sneakers.

Anne decided to drive me to school today because it was my first day, and when we got there she stopped the car and looked at me critically. I thought she'd make some remark about how my hood was always up or how I looked even more androgynous than usual since I had slashed off my hair to a buzz cut the previous night. Instead she said, "You look pretty today."

I flashed her a smile, because I was really trying to be nice to her. "Think I'll be prom queen?"

I didn't hear her response because I was too busy getting out of the car and staring up at the school. It was huge, all glass and concrete and you could tell the builders had tried to make it seem edgy and modern but it just looked like what it was- a jail for kids that had to all be corralled into identical ways of thinking. And whatever happened to good old _wood_?

The bell rang and I sighed. Time to follow the other lemmings.

* * *

If I were to draw my first day at Newton High School, I'd draw a straight line until about halfway through the paper, and then I'd draw a bunch of scribbles and stab the paper, creating some holes, and then to top it all off I'd set the paper on fire with my dad's lighter until it was nothing more than a pile of ashes that I could trod into the ground.

Which doesn't mean it went badly.

Most of my interactions with my fellow peers went something like this:

 **Girl: So, your name is Max. You went to Northgate, right?**

 **Max: ...**

 **Girl: I heard you, uh, stabbed somebody with a pencil.**

 **Max: ...**

 **Girl: ...**

 **Max: Yeah, that's right.**

 **Girl: ...**

 **Max: ...**

 **Girl: Uh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone.**

 **Max: Oh, I don't really care. Tell anyone you want.**

 **Girl: ...**

One girl asked me if I was going to join a sports team, and when I heard that I spit out the water I had been drinking. I said that sports were part of the illusion, which confused her.

"What?"

"It's just a way for them to control us even more." I took another measured gulp of my water. "Otherwise people would get fed up with their pent up physical energy, and it would be bad for the oppressors. I mean, I'd definitely go out for a run if it was a nice day, or take a swim in a nice lake, or learn some judo in self defense. But do you see me chasing after a ball? Am I a dog?"

"I'm the captain of the soccer team."

I watcher her walk away with a scowl.

When I got home Anne asked me how my day was, and I said, "Yeah, it was pretty nice. This girl named Sarah in my homeroom made me a friendship bracelet, and at lunch I and met her friends and her boyfriend and they're all super nice. And after school her boyfriend took me and Sarah to the back of the gym behind the bleachers and we had a three-way. Except I don't think he used protection so I might be pregnant, but at least I have friends."

"That's not funny," Anne said, a sad look on her face. "How was it really?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow," I said.


End file.
